Abstract
The chapter addresses five post-2000 Czech theatre adaptations of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, addressing the array of creative strategies and approaches to Shakespeare on the part of the respective producers. While all the productions in question touch on the basic tropes of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, such as relationships, sex and sexuality, and gender politics, the ways in which the source material is treated differ markedly. Shakespeare’s cult is both respected and deconstructed; the sonnets are reverently recited, but they are also turned into a vaudeville-like music performance; the image of love in the sonnets is both embraced and problematised. The chapter argues that this variety is possible due to the playwright’s status as an adopted national poet that goes back to the nineteenth century. Shakespeare is largely treated by Czech dramaturgy as a domestic cultural phenomenon that could be celebrated, but also freely appropriated, updated or rejected according to current needs. During their two and a half centuries of living with Shakespeare, Czechs have created an intimate relationship with the playwright, and the fact that even his poetry has entered the cultural mainstream through popular theatre adaptations testifies to his cultural importance to the Czech nation.
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Notes
- 1.
On the political importance of the 1616 Shakespeare cycle, see Mišterová, “Inter Arma Non Silent Musae.”
- 2.
Rubáš, Devatero klíčů k jednomu srdci, 9 (Working translation F. K. and D. D.)
- 3.
David Drozd counts that, by 2011, when Hilský published his one-volume collected works of Shakespeare in Czech, the number of theatre productions of his translations had more than doubled those employing Jiří Josek’s renditions (Drozd, 178–179).
- 4.
All the following passages from the production scripts or associated printed materials are working translations by F. K. and D. D.
- 5.
Skokanová, “Shakespeare v kriminále”, 9 (Working translation by F. K. and D. D.)
- 6.
As Drábek maintains, unlike other translators of Shakespeare’s works into Czech, Hilský has become an “authorial figure” for Czech audiences (see Drábek 2009, 73)—a notion that is literally embodied on the stage by Sváteční Shakespearova pošta.
- 7.
Hrdinová, “Shakespearovy Sonety jsou jevišťátko svět,” 11. (Working translation by F. K. and D. D.).
References
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Sonety [The Sonnets], script and directed by Martin Kukučka and Lukáš Trpišovský. Divadlo v Dlouhé, Prague, Czech Republic, premiere 23 November 2019 (as of January 2022, still running).
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Krajník, F., Drozd, D. (2023). Playing the Poems: Five Faces of Shakespeare’s Sonnets on Czech Stages. In: Kingsley-Smith, J., Rampone Jr., W.R. (eds) Shakespeare’s Global Sonnets. Global Shakespeares. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09472-9_11
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